The present invention provides for indirect access to public cloud-based computing environments for the purpose of running ad-hoc commands, on-demand, on any public cloud-based computing resource. Messages including the ad-hoc commands are communicated to a cloud-based command queue, which acts as the intermediary between the user (i.e., command requester) and the public cloud-based computing resources. A command executor agent installed on the cloud-based computing resources, polls the command queue for commands designated for the application(s) currently being executed on the cloud-based computing resources. Results of the command are communicated from the cloud-based computing resource to the command queue, which is periodically polled by a monitoring queue in order for the user/command requester to obtain the results of the execution of the command.